by Perry 130 Replies latest jw friends
cosmic origins, and the once-in-a-lifetime start of life are challenges for Deists too. But does it make them dishonest? - prologos
No it doesn't.
Deists don't make grandiose claims about what god says and what he demands of humans.
As soon as a rational person exposes the glaring flaws in theism, apologists suddenly revert to deism and pretend they are not arguing for a god who demands worship after all.
Perry - "I do not hate atheists, I love them! They keep me from getting bored."
Okay, now you're just being kind of a dick.
Just because we do not see the processes used, the domain even, the EXISTENCE itself gives credence to work involved, by a worker, endowed with energy.
No, it doesn't. Not at all.
Here's a bottom line on creation itself.
Scientists can narrow the gap but never (at least in our lifetimes) answer all the questions about how matter and energy came to be our universe and what that matter and energy originated from.
Some of the terms don't quite fit, like "before the big bang" because time did not exist. Getting bogged down on terms beyond simple disagreements doesn't help anyone here. If someone asks about "before the big bang" or where the matter/energy "came from," we should all understand that what is being asked is how or why it existed at all in a state ready to form the universe and how or why it caused time to exist.
Science can only take us back so far, but supernatural belief does no better. The believer allows "God" to do what he cannot accept from the universe without God. God can be always in existence and equal the entire universe or the sum of all of it's matter/energy. When a nonbeliever says "something from nothing" it is not clearly understood, but when a believer says "everything from God" it is equally not understood and is just a way of pushing off understanding.
Seeing as we cannot understand it all at this time, I abandon (beyond trying to help Perry since he really wants us to help him) any attempts to persuade people that the universe does not need "God" to start. The reason I am able to let go of God is because every god of man's creation has never been demonstrated to be existent at all.
So Perry, forget the universe. Focus on the God of the Bible or the God of your mind. Prove HE exists. But remember for every anecdote/revelation, I could find an anecdote/revelation from someone else's God that differs from your.
Science can only take us back so far, but supernatural belief does no better.
Not true OTWO,
Both can take us back to the beginning. The expanding universe (matter and the space time fabric itself) demands that there was a beginning.
Atheists say, "in the beginning, nothing". Christians are saying, 'In the beginning, God..."
If matter, space and time had a beginning, then something outside of that fabric must have initiated it. Agency (God) existing and acting from outside of the space time universe is the ONLY REASONABLE SOLUTION to this problem.
If you postulate that some part of the universe has always existed, this violates the observation of the expanding universe which necessitates a beginning. Circular reasoning in that case.
Moving on from that problem are the finely tuned conditions necessary for the universe to exist.
Fine Tuning of the Physical Constants of the UniverseParameter | Max. Deviation |
|---|---|
| Ratio of Electrons:Protons | 1 to 37th power |
| Ratio of Electromagnetic Force:Gravity | 1 to 40th power |
| Expansion Rate of Universe | 1 to 55th power |
| Mass Density of Universe1 | 1 to 59th power |
| Cosmological Constant | 1 to 120th power |
These numbers represent the maximum deviation from the accepted values, that would either prevent the universe from existing now, not having matter, or be unsuitable for any form of life. | |
There are dozens of necessary conditions with very narrow deviance tolerances needed for our universe to exist. Above are just 5. The numbers are hard to imagine. If you take the smallest of the ones above, Dr, Hugh Ross provides the following illustration:
One to the 37th power is such an incredibly sensitive balance that it is hard to visualize. Cover the entire North American continent in dimes all the way up to the moon, a height of about 239,000 miles (In comparison, the money to pay for the U.S. federal government debt would cover one square mile less than two feet deep with dimes.). Next, pile dimes from here to the moon on a billion other continents the same size as North America. Paint one dime red and mix it into the billions of piles of dimes. Blindfold a friend and ask him to pick out one dime. The odds that he will pick the red dime are one to the 37th power.
To illustrate the largest of the deviancy allowable in the last listing in the table above, one professor stated that if you stretch a measuring tape from one end of the universe to the other end of the universe (14 billion light years), the amount of deviation allowable for the universe to exist would be only one inch on that measuring tape.
To deal with this problem, atheist professors come up with stuff like parallel universes to try and explain away the fine tuning.
However, if there are a near infinite number of parallel universes, then there are universes where Batman and Robin are real caped crusaders, Tarzan really does swing trough trees with apes, and the tooth fairy really does exist. This is all perfectly sound reasoning under the explanation that atheist scientists give us.
Of course, instead of explaining the universe, this postulate trotted out for mass consumption ends up explaining nothing.
Geneticist Professor Richard Lewontin puts atheism into language that common people can understand:
‘Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.
Some people see a dividing line between science and religion. I say its time to erase that line.
"I was at this time of living, like so many Atheists or Anti-theists, in a whirl of contradictions. I maintained that God did not exist. I was also very angry with God for not existing. I was equally angry with Him for creating a world." - C.S. Lewis
Perry, "Atheists say, "in the beginning, nothing"."
I corrected that on two previous posts. Cosmologists are now making reference to a Multi-verse. If the Atheist is not aware of that then he needs to do some research. You just cut and paste without truly understanding what either side is saying.
The video that you put up concerning the Multiverse is probably something that you did not watch. And where are the Cosmologists to give a rebuttal?
Perry, if the creator always existed and since the universe had a beginning what was god the creator doing
prior to creating the universe ?
Perry,
"To deal with this problem, atheist professors come up with stuff like parallel universes to try and explain away the fine tuning."
What would you know about quantum physics? As far as "explaining away" the fine tuning this is their explanation:
You can have a gazillion universes which are not fine tuned such as ours in giving rise to everything including life. Furthermore such fine tuned universes would be in a drastic minority. If our universe were not to be one of the fine tuned ones (by forces that have nothing to do with God) we would not be here discussing it. Another universe would have those features.
